Two people of the same age can look and act very differently in terms of how old they seem. The secret lies in their "biological age," a measure of cell and tissue health. In a recent study, CU Boulder and Anschutz Medical Campus researchers revealed that children born to women who had experienced higher levels of racial discrimination and bias throughout their lives have a younger biological age than their calendar age.
While additional research is required to understand the long-term implications of slower biological aging, these findings could indicate delayed or disrupted development. The study appears in Annals of Epidemiology . "It's troubling that negative social experiences can get under the skin," said the paper's first author, Zachery Laubach, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at CU Boulder.
"These children don't have control over what their mothers may have experienced, but they can still be affected. During early development , there are lots of biological systems that are undergoing rapid changes. Any deviation in the process may put development out of sync and cause long-term problems.
" Scientists measure a person's biological age, also referred to as epigenetic age acceleration in this study, by looking at changes in the body's DNA patterns. These changes occur naturally with age, but they can also result from stress and unhealthy behaviors like smoking. Previous research has shown that accelerated epigenetic aging—whe.
